Despite having lost two recent Olympic bids, Toronto will study the feasibility of attempting to snare the 2024 Olympic Games.

City council made the decision Fiday, after a motion to study the possibility of hosting the World Expo in 2025 also led to a demand for a report on hosting the 2024 Games.

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam introduced the motion to conduct a feasibility report for hosting the Expo. The motion, said Ms. Wong-Tam, was three pages long, full of research and technical questions specific to the Expo. So, she wasn’t happy when Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong amended her motion to review the possibility of hosting the Olympics as well in the same report.

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“I didn’t think that technically it was probably the most prudent and wise thing to do, just to slap on some words to say why don’t we also look at the Olympics,” said Ms. Wong-Tam.

Mr. Minnan-Wong defended his amendment by saying that Toronto shouldn’t put all its eggs in one basket. He said the Olympics is “the largest global event,” that it would create “a lot of jobs,” leave a legacy of massive infrastructure and generate civic pride. He did not think Torontonians would have the same kind of enthusiasm for the Expo.

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“It’s like the Better Living Centre on steroids,” he said of the Expos’ public image.

Ms. Wong-Tam offered to help Mr. Minnan-Wong with research for a new motion for the Olympic bid. In the end, Councillor Michael Thompson, who had seconded the initial motion, recommended splitting the feasibility report into two — one to deal with the Expo and the other for the Olympics. Ms. Wong-Tam thought this was reasonable and voted in favour of considering both events. The motion passed with a vote of 26-8 and the reports will be presented to the city’s economic development committee in March 2013.

Debate on whether Toronto has a shot at hosting the world’s biggest international sporting event has been simmering since the fall, when a group approached Mayor Rob Ford seeking his support. The mayor expressed little enthusiasm at the time, but voted in favour of the motion on Friday.

London and Rio de Janeiro will host the 2012 and 2016 Summer Games, respectively. Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid are vying for the 2020 Games. The winner will be announced in September 2013.

Ms. Wong-Tam said that when she talked to several MPs, Toronto’s Board of Trade and Tourism Toronto, the idea of hosting the Expo received a warm to enthusiastic response, but the general reaction to hosting the Olympics was cool because of concerns over cost and lack of long-term sustainability.

She acknowledged the “excitement and glamour of the Olympics is unmatched,” but questioned if it would be wise for Toronto to invest in the Olympics so soon after hosting the 2015 Pan Am games. However, Mr. Minnan-Wong said, “With regard to the Pan Am Games, one has to stop and think about how viable the business model was to begin with. Torontonians are only interested in it because it’s in Toronto. The Olympics, on the other hand, that is the premier sports event that the world has. No matter where it is, everyone turns on their TV set.”

The expo, said Ms. Wong-Tam, has the potential to create 17,000 jobs per year for eight years, according to data from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a consulting company. She said the “nation-defining exercise” is a good move not only for Toronto, but also for collaborations with other parts of the GTA.

“Expo 67 in Montreal was the emergence of modern Canada’s face to the world, and then Expo 86 in Vancouver also did the same thing for our Pacific Coast. This will be the first time that Toronto has held an event like this.”

1960, 1964, 1976: The City of Toronto tried to host each of these Olympic Games, according to the city archives, but the bids failed every year — so badly that Toronto did not get anywhere close to ranking among the IOC’s final batch of candidates.

1996: For the first time, Toronto’s bid for the Summer Olympics made it into the final round of voting at the International Olympic Committee’s selection vote in Tokyo, Japan. As close as it was, the city wound up in third place, behind Athens in second place and Atlanta in first.

2008: It was the closest Toronto has come to hosting the Summer Olympics, but it was an effort marred by tough competition and jeopardized, some have argued, by comments mayor Mel Lastman made about Africa, saying he was afraid to go there because “I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me.” He quickly apologized, but an African delegate at the IOC meeting in Moscow said the comments were nonetheless an affront to Olympic principles. Toronto saw itself as the city to beat, and despite some tough lobbying, it placed second with 22% of the vote. The honours were given to Beijing. “Frankly we had the best bid out there and all I can think is Beijing better do what they promised. Because we were good,” Olympic rower Marnie McBean told reporters after the vote.

2024?: Toronto did not wage another bid for the 2012 Games — that honour went to London — but there have been rumblings about trying again, now that the city has won the Pan American Games for 2015. Last year, the same influential group that helped land the Pan Am Games considered pushing for the 2020 Games, but Mayor Rob Ford nixed the idea because it would be too expensive. The prospect of a 2024 bid has been received more positively, so far. “Clearly, it’s something that we want to certainly look at,” Councillor Michael Thompson, chairman of the city’s economic development committee said in November. The “financial situation that the city is facing today will not necessarily be the situation it faces in five or 10, 15 years down the road.”